The genteel ultrasound

So…we come in on Bridget, terrified, watching this ultrasound, which is amazing. Also, if it’s her ‘first’ ultrasound, let me just say that this is an unusually genteel way to um, check stuff. Thanks, preggo friends, for filling me in on that particular indignity.

Anyway, so Bridge is out of the whole fake pregnancy woods with nary a worry (oh, except that Andrew is furious about it) and on the other side of things, there’s the fact that the doctor was barely seen, and Juliet is creepily interested in what a miscarriage feels like while wrapped in her Christmas sweater. It’s all a parallel universe loving family way to get into things, and I especially love the part where Andrew wants ‘Siobhan’ to rest whilst wrapped in her leather jacket with lo these many zippers…

But then, before we’re even out of the montage, Bridge is at Malcolm’s hotel room. He says Bridge a whole lot, and he wants to jet, and I do love the line “I was the only thing I could think of” but honestly, you guys, is this the point where Bridget changes into Siobhan? With the paying off of Malcolm, who hasn’t admitted he’s back on the junk through none of his own doing? He agrees with me, since he brought her her 6 month chip without any bitterness.

Ringer now has a ‘created by’ at the bottom of its title card…

Okay, so when we met Bridget in flashback, she was a pouty pants who didn’t wash her hair.

Juliet is at public school, where Logan Echolls still likes her, and where Juliet is apparently still insulted by the term ‘rich girl’. Really? I thought the whole point of being so rich and snotty is that you want people to know you are, in fact, rich. Can someone shed some light on this? Rich girls? Any of you?

Other observations – if you wondered why Andrew’s coworker annoyed you so much, it was because she used to be Lila on Dexter, and because when she says the improbable line “Oh thank God” after hearing about “Siobhan’s” miscarriage, you want to actually rake her face across cement. Is that uncharitable?

When I watched Malcolm shooting up it reminded me that I wanted to know how the kids in Mystic Falls, over on Vampire Diaries, get their hands on so many hypodermic needles? Anwyay, Malcolm’s on the juice, remember?

Juliet will tell anyone who asks on the phone that she had a miscarriage, including in this case her would-be-stepmother’s would-be-lover. Bridget is playing Siobhan with her new sort-of sponsor whilst dreaming about when Malcolm and she first met, and you don’t need me to fill in that he is delightfully handsome, do you?

I could run a standup routine on this show forever, but I’m just going to go with the highlights here. SMG, who is extremely skilled, don’t get me wrong, has chosen to distinguish between Siobhan and Bridget by making Siobhan’s speaking pattern extremely clipped, and rolling right into a sneer when she talks about all her plans and how they’re being interrupted. Also, we get the idea that she has a voracious sexual appetite, and potentially carries a torch for Henry, whose picture she still has in Paris. IS she also still potentially pregnant with his potential baby?

Um, so Arc De Triomph shot, followed by Andrew recruiting Siobhan’s paramour to be the ‘head of European Operations’. Wait, what? Is anyone on this show not related? Anyway, he’s flying to New York which I imagine is about to be awkward…

Other highlights include sociopath Juliet digging rather charmingly for whether or not fake Sio and Dad are going to try to have a baby again (the answer to which, ‘hell to the no’, makes him turn back into the uptight dick we met in the pilot), Machado telling Bridge she’s gonna wear a wire whether she likes it or not, and the first straight-up sunny smile we’ve seen from Bridget since this show began. Honestly, she throws him a thousand-watter (in the service of pretending she is Siobhan and they’ve never met before) and it’s hilarious.

But this is where the party starts! Bridget is smart enough to A) dupe Machado B) tell Malcolm what he needed to know, via a hilariously long holding-the-menu in front of his face shot, and C) double-cross yell at Machado for setting her up with a ‘drug addict’. You guys, this is what this show can be. Like VD, I want to not know when the twists are coming. I want to feel like the show is ahead of me. I want to be able to honestly say that the utterly improbable “My sobriety was broken by an evil man who shot me up against my will” is the most PROBABLE thing in the episode!

But Bridge and Malcolm switching roles, letting her be his support (if only for seconds) is sweet and the connection between them is real, if alarmingly fragile…

Juliet is spurned by Logan Echolls, who switches her out of his English class…

Andrew wines and dines Siobhan’s Paris paramour Tyler, who loses his mind when he sees the woman he’s been sleeping with wrapped in green sequins and smiling through dinner. (All of which would be much less difficult to take if Lila - what is her name on this show? – wasn’t so irritating). But then poor hapless Tyler gets to tell Bridget the beginnings of what she will eventually figure out, but what Siobhan gets to know now: he’s been sleeping with not-dead Siobhan in Paris!! Fun fun fun!

Malcolm stealing cash off bistro tables isn’t fun, Andrew and Bridget bonding in the back of the Town Car is sweet, if hyper-creepy given that she “wants this marriage to work”, so she is, in fact, taking over her sister’s identity. But that’s OK since Cora-Siobhan is ready to play Siobhan also…

And just when you thought you were able to keep your dinner down, Malcolm comes to the gorgeous looking Bridget (SMG got a tan, maybe to contrast with the flashback scenes where Bridget looks trashy and terrible) and Andrew in the lobby. Everyone is further and further entrenched with one another. Now aren’t you holding your breath? Now aren’t you wishing this was coming back next week? Aren’t you kind of rooting for Andrew and Bridget to make a go of it? Don’t you kind of wish this episode was the damn pilot? Plus there’s a side of Juliet in pre-boiling-bunny mode, and Bridget turning Malcolm over to Charlie who will, of course, ruin them both…

This is what you get when you invest in a show – the absolute ridiculous roller-coaster silliness that is this fun show. Now, if they pull off the brakes, I shall start laying bets on how many aliases Siobhan and Bridget will maintain if this show goes four seasons. See you next super-fun week!